Challenger confronts Chavez choice of successor

Caracas | Henrique Capriles, a governor who ran a spirited but unsuccessful attempt to unseat Venezuela president
Hugo Chavez
in the last election, says he will run against the late president’s hand-picked successor in a snap vote that will determine the future of Mr Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution.

Mr Capriles said he would accept the nomination of a coalition of opposition groups to face off on April 14 against Nicolas Maduro, who served as vice-president until the late president died of cancer last Tuesday. On Friday, Mr Maduro was inaugurated as president and vowed to continue his predecessor’s radical agenda to remake this Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ nation as a show of “the most absolute loyalty to the commander, Hugo Chavez".

Polls show Mr Maduro will win against Mr Capriles. The outpouring of emotion for the late president, who is glorified in 24-hour coverage on state television as a visionary who transformed Venezuela, is expected to be transferred to Mr Maduro.

But Mr Capriles said he would not back down, even though he had been told by someone earlier in the day he was being “led to a slaughterhouse".

“I want to tell our people – from here inside, clinging to God, in whom I believe – that I am going to fight," Mr Capriles said, in a pointed address in which he accused the government of using Mr Chavez’s death to its advantage . “Nicolas," Mr Capriles said, speaking directly to Mr Maduro, “I am not going to leave you an open road, friend. You will have to defeat me with votes. I am going to fight with these hands. I’ll fight for each vote."

Related Quotes

Company Profile

Mr Capriles said the government had been laying the groundwork for decisions by the Supreme Court and the electoral board that permitted Mr Maduro to run after the populist leader’s death. “They’ve been lying to Venezuelans," Mr Capriles said. “All this was coldly calculated – when they would hold elections, the timetable for the whole electoral process. Who knows when president Chavez died? You had everything fixed."

Mr Maduro called the accusations “a declaration of war". “What’s been said is grave, very grave," he said. “It’s the worst that we could have expected."

Mr Chavez’s cancer was a state secret and the public was never told what kind of tumour he had.

Mr Maduro, in his inaugural address, spoke about Mr Chavez’s ordeal and revealed that the president believed as early as June 2011 that the tumour was severe.

“He told us, ‘This is worse than what you think or what the doctors say,’ " Mr Maduro said, recounting discussions in Cuba, where Mr Chavez was treated.

Mr Chavez, however, would later announce publicly that he had been cured on two occasions.

Mr Maduro also said in his speech that in December, Mr Chavez’s “intuition" was that he was not going to emerge from the operation that awaited him in Havana. Indeed, Mr Chavez never recovered from the December 11 surgery. Still, Mr Maduro and other officials often spoke hopefully about the president’s health in the weeks that followed, even saying he was running the day-to-day affairs of state.

Mr Capriles also said the government violated the constitution because the head of congress should have been designated interim leader upon Mr Chavez’s death. The elevation of Mr Maduro to acting president, Mr Capriles said, allowed the government to get around an article in the constitution that bars sitting vice presidents from running for the presidency.

It is easy to see why Mr Capriles would not want to face Mr Maduro.

For many Venezuelans, the late president’s last directive is ingrained: On December 8, Mr Chavez told his countrymen in his final public comments that they should throw their support behind Mr Maduro if he became unable to govern.

“I ask you that from my heart," he said in what turned out to be his farewell to the nation.

“He will be our president because our commander gave the order to put him there in power," said Gregorio Villamizar, who said he worshipped Mr Chavez and would follow any of his orders. “He was a Chavez ally, the successor to Chavez, and he was the only one Chavez prepared to take power."

Luis Vicente Leon, director of a Caracas-based polling company whose surveys show Mr Maduro has more support than Mr Capriles, has said that because the election is coming so soon after Mr Chavez’s death, many will see it as a contest between Mr Capriles and Mr Chavez.